


i promise i'll make y'all proud

by therjolras



Series: we're totally like the mob [1]
Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Humor, Pre-New 52, Team as Family, Waffles, mentions of canon-typical violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-27
Updated: 2016-10-27
Packaged: 2018-08-27 09:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8396806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therjolras/pseuds/therjolras
Summary: So Steph is a Bat, right? So that makes the whole "Batfamily" her family too, right? That's right. And if it's not her family already, she's gonna make it her family. Just you wait and see.





	

**Author's Note:**

> let me just say first up that no one's prouder than I am that this wrapped up so quickly once I realized what I was trying to create. it started as a Steph-is-the-only-sane-Batkid-and-everyone-else-tells-her-their-problems fic with waffles as the ultimate comfort food, then I decided screw that, Steph's not here to be someone's therapist, and it became, well, this. thanks so much to Jo (fate_motif) for pointing my glaring inconsistencies out to me. 
> 
> also I decided I could totally pull off a series where all the titles were hamilton references, so here ya go.

It starts, kind of inevitably, with Damian. It probably started with Damian months ago-- that case with the elementary school kidnappers, and Damian calling himself ‘Bruce’, and the schoolbus, and the bouncy house-- but it starts with the culmination of that, here, in Stephanie Brown’s kitchen, at 3 am on a Wednesday. Stephanie on the floor, Damian on the kitchen table, a waffle iron between them. Damian has one glove off, the sleeve of his uniform rolled up, and the very thorough Brown Family First Aid Kit open on his lap as he tends to three different bullet grazes on his bicep. Stephanie’s impressed; he’s only complained about the lack of general posh-ness once so far, and it’s been nearly half an hour since she sort-of dragged him in here so he wouldn’t, like, bleed out or something.

Unfortunately, this means so far silence has reigned, and at this point it’s kind of getting awkward.

The waffle maker beeps. 

“So,” Stephanie says, switching out one perfect golden-brown waffle round and pouring the rest of the batter on. She doesn’t have anything else to say, though, and falls silent as she closes the iron and divides the waffle in half and passes half to Damian. He receives it in his not-injured-but-connected-to-an-injured-arm hand and gives her a carefully blank look, with enough of an arched eyebrow to sarcastically convey confusion. And they say he’s bad at communicating.

“You eat it,” Steph says. “Like this.” She takes a bite from one end of her portion and adds, with her mouth full, “They don’t bite, you know.”

“Tt.” Damian scoffs, and takes a tiny bite. His expression promptly brightens, switching from careful blankness to what on someone else might be pleasant surprise. He takes another, larger, bite and says, mouth full, “These are… better than anticipated.” 

“Alfred’s cooking not always cut it?” Stephanie says, and Damian shrugs.

“His waffles are… they leave something to be desired,” he says, correcting himself mid-sentence. Stephanie narrowly avoids expressing her approval of his tact-- she’s not sure he’ll be impressed-- and says instead, 

“Well, my waffles are pretty amazing, but until you’ve tasted my mom’s you haven’t lived. She’s, like, waffle goddess.” Stephanie gets a fork on her way to the cupboard to retrieve the syrup. She glances over to see Damian taking another thoughtful bite, his expression changed. Subdued. “She’s not here, though, so you’ll have to settle for mine,” Steph adds, and Damian snorts, but it’s automatic. “Damian?” Steph says.

“What is your mother like?” Damian blurts out. Rigid. Shifting the heavy first-aid kit off his lap, like he’s preparing an escape route. Stephanie’s read enough of the al Ghul file to remember she’s treading on treacherous ground: specifically, Damian and mothers. 

“She’s… she’s cool,” Stephanie says, pouring a pool of syrup on her plate and dipping the end of her waffle in it. “I mean, we’ve had problems in the past, but she’s always been able to pull herself back up. She’s had to deal with a lot, between me and my dad and everything she did to herself. She’s strong, I think. Stronger than I’ve given her credit for.” She takes a bite of waffle and chews, and Damian seems to process this information. Then he takes a bite of waffle and goes back to stitching up his arm. He’s doing a good job of it, for working with his non-dominant hand and being twisted around to get a good angle and everything.

“I don’t suppose you’d appreciate my offering any more help?” Steph says. 

“Tt. I can handle myself,” Damian says.

“I figured,” Stephanie says. The waffle iron beeps. She procures the second waffle and puts it on her plate, mentally laying claim to the side that landed in her puddle of syrup. Damian glances up-- hopefully, she notices-- as she cuts the waffle apart and hands him half.

“Thank you,” he says. Then, “Fatgirl.”

“You’re welcome,” she replies, unplugging the waffle iron. “Brat Wonder.”

Silence falls as he continues stitching up his arm and she continues to enjoy her waffles, but it’s a comfortable silence, and it lingers even as she cleans up the waffle-prep and he sweeps up various heaps of bloody gauze and band-aid wrappings. Then it’s broken by the sound of the front door unlocking, and Stephanie and Damian exchange a glance. “Mask,” Stephanie says. “It’s really up in the air as to what she knows, but let’s be on the safe side.” Damian doesn’t protest; merely sweeps up his discarded mask and presses it back on. A moment later Crystal Brown enters the room, and before anyone can say anything she’s obviously taken in the whole scene: Batgirl, sans cowl, and Robin, no longer bleeding, in her kitchen eating waffles. She blinks, and sets down her armload, and says, 

“You know it’s a school night.”

“It was supposed to be a quick patrol,” Stephanie says. “Robin and I ran into each other.”

“Not literally, I hope?” Crystal says, turning her attention to Damian, who definitely doesn’t stiffen. Stephanie quickly says,

“No, no. He was running down some weapons shipments, and I accidentally wound up giving him a hand. Some guy just got a couple lucky shots off on him, so when we were done I brought him back here-- closest convenient place.”

“A  _ couple  _ lucky shots?” Crystal frowns. Damian squirms.

“They are meagre injuries,” he says. “I have already tended to them.” Crystal raises an eyebrow.

“I’d feel a lot better if you let me take a look, young man,” she says. “I’m a nurse, you know.” 

“I do not require--” Damian breaks off, frowns, glances uncertainly at Stephanie. She gives him a frown and a nod in return, and he says, “Very well.” 

Stephanie tries not to gape as he unwraps his bandaged arm. Crystal makes a face as she examines his work, but declares after a moment, “You patched this up pretty well, considering the angle you were working from. Do you have some medical training?”

“It has not been a factor of my training,” Damian says. “I have learned primarily by observation.”

“I’m even more impressed now,” Crystal says. “Keep an eye on that, and have a  _ professional  _ stitch it up again if it tears.” She wraps his arm again, giving him a concerned look at his rigid posture and then sending Stephanie a look. Stephanie quickly shakes her head.  _ Leave it.  _

Crystal sighs. “Does your family know where you are, Robin?” She says.

“I informed Batman of our location when we made the detour,” Damian says. “He will be retrieving me when he is finished with his other duties.”

“Which Batman, again?” Stephanie says. Damian scowls.

“Father,” he says. Stephanie winces, and her mother raises her eyebrows. 

“Have some more waffle,” Stephanie says. “It’ll make you feel better.”

“Tt,” Damian says, but has some more waffle anyway. Crystal gives Stephanie a worried,  _ I-hope-you-know-what-you’re-doing  _ look and says,

“Remember this is a school night, Stephanie. See you in the morning.”

“See you, mom,” Stephanie says, and meets her for a hug before Crystal excuses herself.

“So that was your mother,” Damian says. “She seemed… pleasant.”

“Oh, she’s all that,” Stephanie says. “Keep eating. You have blood loss.”

===

And that’s it. Suddenly the two of them have forged an uneasy truce, and Steph’s too relieved to consider the long-term ramifications of this fact. Such as Oracle taking this as a good track record for stabilizing volatile assassin bloodthirsty types, and subsequently teaming her up with The Red Hood.

(What.)

“O,” she hisses into her comm, “you do realize this guy you’ve hooked me up with tried to kill Tim like five times?”

“I can hear you,” the Hood growls. Oracle sighs over the line.

“ _ He came to me _ ,” she says. “ _ Very calm, very composed. Asked for a truce while he tracked down a human trafficking ring right here in Gotham. Swore he’d play by our rules, but he needs the resources. He’s a killer, Batgirl, but he’s not a psychopath _ .”

“Usually,” Hood adds, and Stephanie hears him both over the link and in her free ear. It’s giving her vertigo. “I like the off-days about as much as anyone else.”

“So nearly killing Robin and shooting up half of Gotham dressed as Batman were ‘off days’, huh?” Stephanie snaps. Hood shrugs.

“A  _ lot  _ of off days,” he says. “But while we’re sitting here talking about how I may or may not be a psychopath, that human trafficking ring isn’t getting any less busted.”

“Fine,” Steph says. “ _ Fine. _ But if this goes south…”

“ _ I’ve got Batman on speed-dial _ ,” Oracle says. “ _ He doesn’t know Hood is in town, yet. If this goes right, he’ll never know _ .”

“And I’d like to keep it that way,” Hood says.

“Alright,” Steph says. “I’ll take it.”

“ _ Finally, _ ” Hood says, and jumps off the roof of their chosen neutral ground-- an apartment block with built-in Starbucks bordering on Batman’s territory. There’s no soft puff of a grappling gun discharging, only the clank of a fire escape, and when she braves the edge of the roof, she sees him bounding down the side with practiced ease. “You coming or not, Blondie?” he calls up.

Steph sighs, calls the Ricochet (perks of neutral ground not far from the Firewall), and grapples down. “We riding?” she calls.

“I sure as hell ain’t flying,” he calls back.

They ride. Hood actually compliments the Ricochet, which totally doesn’t make Steph swell up in pride a little. Oracle’s already tracked the ring, with Hood’s help, and all that’s left is for Steph (with Hood’s help) to raze the whole operation to the ground. They leave the cleanup for the GCPD and apparently INTERPOL-- apparently the ring is a bigger deal than Steph had thought. Hood’s definitely been after it a while, because he hits extra hard and yells extra loud and, when Stephanie pushes him out and leaves the cops to it, he staggers. Makes that funny noise that happens when exhaustion becomes an emotion. And maybe Steph’s feeling it too, because instead of telling the Hood  _ nice to meet you, have a nice life, _ she punches him lightly in the shoulder and says, “Hey. You, me, celebratory waffles, my treat. Have you been watching your blood sugar recently? It doesn’t look like it.”

The Hood huffs, and sighs, and says, “Whatever. Okay.”

The two of them go to Waffle House. It’s 4 am and they’re both in full costume and the Hood has a hasty field dressing on his leg, but he left the helmet outside and Steph buys them both a massive pile of waffles and for a while they don’t talk. Until, heading towards five-thirty, Hood says, 

“It’s not like I can’t control myself. Like I have these…  _ days, _ where I just black out and wake up later to find out I’ve done something abhominable.”

And Stephanie says, “Oh?”

And Hood nods, and says, “It’s like I’m drunk. Like the aftereffects of the Lazarus Pit is the world’s worst tequila and instead of getting happy and loopy I’m angry and I’ve got no compunctions. Nothing to stop me from doing whatever the hell I want to do because I’m angry.” He studies the tabletop intently, scratching at a stain that’s not going to come off. For a non-vigilante the domino mask he’s wearing would render his expression kind of inscrutable; for Steph, who’s spent years perfecting the art of Reading Tim the Unreadable with the mask on, Jason’s like an open book in large print.

“Do you have a way of dealing with it?” she says. Jason glances up at her, surprised, then shrugs.

“Lock myself in my room and let someone else do the crimefighting?” he says. “It’s not exactly a flow chart.”

“It’s a start,” she says, picking up her last waffle and checking the bill, which she knows she paid half an hour ago. “Good work out there tonight, Hood. Take care of yourself, ‘kay?”

“Will do, Batgirl,” Jason replies, and waves a little as she leaves.

Oracle comms her on the way home. “ _ Good work _ .”

“He reminds me of Damian,” Steph says. “Kind of an ass, but really just slightly less of an ass with a massive identity crisis.” Oracle snorts.

“ _ Don’t forget to come by later to work out how we’re going to report this _ ,” she says. “ _ Goodnight, Batgirl _ .”

===

Life doesn’t just change profoundly because Steph gets along with people that are supposedly hard to get along with. Yeah, she busts heads and crosses wits with gun-toting hoodlums and child assassins, but Steph’s kind of always been the eclectic one. She runs with  _ all  _ the weirdos.

Case in point, Red Robin, though she’s not quite sure how they fell in with each other. Totally didn’t have anything to do with Steph getting nostalgic and asking Oracle for Tim’s patrol routes. Not at all. They’ve finally got a good rapport going on, trading quips over busted heads, although tonight it took Steph a few minutes and an irritable remark that she  _ wasn’t going to kiss him, jeez, relax  _ to coax one out of Tim. Once that was out of the way, he relaxed a  _ lot, _ and now they’re getting on fine. They bounce around and kick ass, and are only moderately sarcastic to each other, and when they run a mugger off at about three AM and he leaves his skateboard behind, Tim thoughtfully picks it up and Steph laughs. She knows that face, even half-hidden by his goofy cowl. It’s his challenge-accepted face. It’s three am and Batgirl and Red Robin are cleaning up after a mugging in a parking garage, and Red Robin  _ really  _ wants to skate.

Steph surreptitiously turns on the camera in her cowl. “Go for it,” she says. “Relieve your carefree teenage years. For all of us.”

“They weren’t exactly carefree,” Tim mutters, but he drops the board and rolls it with one foot. It rattles on one side, but Tim doesn’t seem too bothered; he hops aboard and off he goes, cape billowing behind him, until he tries to jump a divider and it gets caught up in his legs. Down he goes. Steph swears and runs after him, but by the time she gets there he’s already on his feet and looking displeased. 

“I’m okay,” he says before she can ask. He looks irritated, but unharmed, so Steph lets him bullshit.

“You’re not going to let it win, are you?” She says instead, and he gives her a Look, but he also takes his skateboard back about twenty feet and tries again. He almost has it, but the cape interferes. Again. 

On the third try, he pulls his cape around his shoulders like a scarf and clears the divider, landing neatly on the other side and rolling on down the ramp to the lower floors. Steph bounds over the divider and jogs after him. She’s sure her cowl is capturing these events to be remembered for all time, but she wants to see it for herself.

In the level below, Tim’s crouched low to his newly-acquired board, making loops around the concrete pillars and smiling a silly smile she hasn’t seen in ages. Probably because they don’t hang out as much as they used to (which is totally depressing, honestly), but hey. She’s missed that smile, and not just in the used-to-kiss-it way.

Tim comes around the corner of a seemingly-abandoned minivan and remarks, “you’re being oddly quiet,” as he passes and loops around her just out of arm’s reach.

“I’m reminiscing,” Steph says. “About when we were just a couple of fun-loving teen vigilantes who made out and busted heads.” Tim snorts and makes another loop, hooking his thumbs in his utility belt for just a moment. 

“We had some good times,” he says, smiling a little. “Some hard times, too, but we had a lot of good times. Even before we started…”

“Making out?” Steph guesses. Tim laughs. 

“Yeah,” he says. “Before that. I’m glad we were friends first.”

“Even if I totally wanted to jump your bones from about the day we met,” Steph jokes. Tim gives her an amused look, and if he’s not going to acknowledge that he’s gone red as a tomato under his goofy cowl she won’t either.

“The day we met, you hit me with a brick,” Tim says. Steph shrugs,  _ what ya gonna do. _

“You looked damn fine once the brick was out of your face,” she says. “But you were totally holding me at arm’s length, and so we were just friends. Which was probably good for us, honestly, because we can be friends again now.”

Tim’s motion sutters. He halts his board and turns towards Steph, having lost his color but not a completely gobsmacked expression. “We’re friends?” he says, and Steph rolls her eyes.

“There’s no rule against exes being friends,” she says, and then she grins. “Of course we are, boy wonder, I can’t get rid of you. You’ve grown on me. Like a tumor.” Tim ducks his head, grinning, and Steph decides to act on impulse (something she is, admittedly, very good at) and say, “Hey. We should do this again sometime. Grab some waffles, see a movie. Good old-fashioned teenage vigilante fun.”

“Fun sounds nice,” Tim says. Then, “My apartment has a really nice TV I’ve been meaning to try out.”

“I’ve got a waffle iron,” Steph says. “And the first Fast and Furious movie.”

Tim grins. “Let’s do that.”

They take Tim’s bike and swing by the Firewall long enough for Steph to grab a change of civvies and the spare waffle iron, and then they go to Tim’s. Tim, as it turns out, has  _ all  _ the Fast and Furious movies, so they watch two and eat waffles, and then Steph insists that they make time to watch the other ones. Tim puts it on his phone calendar, because he’s a  _ nerd. _

And just like that, they’re hanging out again. Friends. 

( _ Batkids, _ some ridiculous voice in the back of her head whispers.)

===

Two months later, she’s on the end of her rope and fully prepared to exploit her status as a registered Bat(kid) to catch a break. She’s done for the night, bone-dead tired and  _ incredibly  _ sore. They can deal. ( _ They _ being nay-sayers and dicks. No pun intended.)

“O, I’m about to collapse, where’s the nearest bat-affiliated safehouse? Apartment, whatever? I really don’t care who I’m intruding on, if I launch one more damn grapple line my arms are gonna fall off.” Stephanie lands in a roll, and it’s a crummy one, but she’s still alive and it’s been a hell of a night so she really doesn’t care at this point. Oracle, to her merit, doesn’t ask questions or make suggestions; she pauses for a moment, and then she says, 

“Younger Batman’s got an apartment two blocks west. Roof access. I’ll handle security.”

“I guess I can swing that far,” Steph says. “Thanks, O.” She gets to her feet, takes a deep breath, and fires off her grapple. Then she takes two more deep breaths before jumping off the edge and swinging. She doesn’t trust her reflexes enough to fire off again midair; she lands on a roof midway to catch her breath, and the glow of a neon sign across the street catches her eye.

“O,” she says, “I’m taking a detour.” 

She takes the fire escape to street level, crosses with moderate ease, and slips inside the 24-hour diner without acknowledging the other clientele. There must not be much in that regard, because the minute she plops down at the counter she’s attended to. “Waffles,” she said. “To go.” She fumbles in the pockets of her utility belt for her Batman Inc. card, glancing in the security mirrors above the counter to get an idea of who else is in the diner. No one currently. Which is nice, ‘cause she’s liable to get her ass kicked if any trouble comes up. 

Waitstaff comes back and puts the styrofoam box of waffles on the counter. Steph hands over her card. A minute later it’s in her hand again and she’s putting it away, collecting her wares, and leaving again. It’s harder swinging one-handed, but she’ll survive. She’s survived the rest of the night already, hasn’t she?

Oracle pops up to direct her to the right rooftop, and when Steph pulls the access door open she’s not zapped, which suggests the open-sesame has already been spoken. She stumbles down the stairs, finds the sofa, and collapses bodily on it with only a pause to put her precious, hard-earned waffles down on the coffee table. Within seconds she’s asleep.

When she wakes up, she’s got a blanket draped over her and a pillow under her head and her cowl is missing. It’s on the table. So is her cape. And a post-it note where she’d previously left her precious, hard-earned waffles. Steph sits up, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, and leans over the table to read it.

_I put your food in the fridge,_ it says. It’s signed with a little doodle of a bat.

It occurs to Steph that without exhaustion, she’s left with gnawing hunger and full-body soreness. She rolls off the couch and onto her feet, pulls off her gloves and boots and various utility belts. She sidesteps the coffee table and reaches down to touch her toes, reaches up to the ceiling, windmills her arms a little bit. Then she goes in search of the fridge and finds it, but she also finds Dick Grayson sitting at a bare kitchen table with a bowl of colorful cereal. He looks up at her and offers an awkward smile.

“Hi,” he says. 

“Hi,” Steph says, and because she’s faced off the Batman multiple times and also literally died and has kind of been desensitised to fear, she turns her back to Dick and opens the fridge. Her styrofoam box of waffles is on the shelf at her eye-level. She pulls it out, closes the fridge, and says, “I’m gonna use your microwave.”

Dick points. Steph puts her precious, hard-earned waffles straight into the microwave (sans the meltable styrofoam box) and leans against the humming fridge as the microwave does its magic. Dick chomps away at his cereal, and the silence stretches. The microwave beeps. Steph slides her warm, slightly soggy waffles straight back into the styrofoam box and leans back against the fridge. 

When she takes a bite of waffle, it’s bland and a little bit soggy, but she’s earned them and she doesn’t care.

Dick drains his cereal bowl and gets up to drop it in the sink. It lands with a  _ clank. _ “So, rough night?” Dick says. It falls flat. A bit awkward. Steph registers it distantly, around the mechanics of bite waffle, chew waffle, swallow waffle.

“Yeah,” she says. “Rough night.”

“I have painkillers if you need ‘em,” Dick says, skirting the far side of the kitchen table. “Nothing too strong, though.”

“I need to eat and go back to sleep,” Steph says. “But thanks.”

Dick smiles, a tiny, awkward creature, and he nods. “No prob, Batgirl.” He leaves the kitchen. Steph registers, a bit late, that he’s wearing gym shorts with the Flash logo. It’s adorable. She finishes her waffles, finds the garbage and throws away her styrofoam box, and goes back to the sofa. 

When she wakes again another sticky-note is left next to the first.  _ Left for work,  _ it reads.  _ Sorry I’m a bad host. Feel better.  _ The tiny doodle of a bat is accompanied by a tiny heart. 

Dick’s supposed to be the nice brother, she remembers. Maybe one of these days they’ll talk not under stressful circumstances and she’ll see it for herself.

She takes the sticky-notes with her when she leaves. 

===

“ _ Just give him time _ ,” Dick says over the comms. “ _ He’s really torn up over Tim. He’ll kick Scarecrow’s ass and come back feeling better, everything will be fine _ .”

“Life ain’t that easy, Batman Two,” Steph replies. “And  _ relax, _ none of this is gonna come back to you. See you on the flip side.” She signs off. Richie-Rich’s warnings be darned, the gang has a problem and Steph is going to solve it, because she is  _ smart  _ sometimes.

She takes the Ricochet to the bunker under Wayne Tower, which up until a few months ago was restricted territory. No-girls-allowed. But she had that case with Batman and Black Bat and Penguin’s vendetta against them after the whole blowing-up-the-Iceberg-Lounge debacle (which Steph tracked down first, so they couldn’t kick her off of it), and then Red Robin and Robin and the arms dealers, and then Oracle sent her as an envoy with information and pure genius to the Boy’s Club, and now she’s been in once a month or so at least and she knows the security codes. 

For now, anyway. She might lose access after the stunt she’s about to pull.

“Hey, Bats!” She shouts, when she’s parked. “Knock-knock!”

She finds him in the lab, in full uniform sans cowl, working on a batch of samples. The computer’s synthesizing a batch of chemicals; she recognizes a few as components of the antidote for fear toxin.

“Big bad bat,” she says, approaching the table and pushing off her own cowl. “Hey, Earth to Bruce Wayne, come in.” She knocks on the tabletop, not hard enough to rattle its contents, and Batman lifts his head.

“Batgirl,” he says. “What are you doing here?”

“Helping,” she replies. “Before you run yourself into the ground. Tim’s doing well, by the way. Yesterday we were hanging out and he walked all the way to the bathroom on his own. Which is an accomplishment when your respiratory system is whacked, by the way.” She watches his face as she talks, watches pensive calm turn to stony resolve. So he’s angry. Angry at Steph, at Tim, at the situation, at himself? “Look,” she says. “I’m here because you’re doing that stupid thing where you blame yourself and work alone and get into trouble, and it won’t help anyone. You won’t catch Scarecrow like this, and you know it, you just don’t want to say it.” She folds her arms. Batman’s face hardens again. Steph unfolds her arms and drops the brown paper bag on the table. 

“Eat,” she says. “Rest your eyes for a couple of minutes. Take some deep breaths. When you’ve done all that, I’m going to help you catch Scarecrow.”

Batman frowns at her. She folds her arms right back. Batman picks up the brown paper bag and looks inside.

“Waffles,” he says.

“I decided the gesture was most effective if I actually cooked,” Steph says. Batman looks at her, and he’s actually seeing her, she figures, which is a start.

“What are you doing, Stephanie?” Bruce says. 

“Like I said,” Steph replies. “Helping.” 

Bruce tilts his chin up and turns away, taking the bag with him. Steph follows him to the computer and the big chair before it, which he turns away from the screen before he sits down. Then he proceeds to eat every single waffle, closing his eyes between bites, and Steph leans on the railing and waits.

When Bruce finishes, he crumples up the brown paper bag and tosses it at the garbage can. It goes in, a perfect three-pointer. Steph wonders if Bruce ever played basketball when he was younger, if there’s a court on the grounds of Wayne Manor that she hasn’t been around long enough to find. Before she can wonder too long, Bruce gets to his feet and walks back to the lab. Steph follows.

“So,” she says. “Scarecrow.”

“Yes,” he says. “The files are open on the computer. Toxicology report on Scarecrow’s new toxin and the antidote I’m working on are included. By the time you’re finished I will be finished here as well.”

Steph goes back to the computer and reads through the files. When she’s finished, she returns to the lab and finds Bruce assembling and prepping the new antidote by hand. 

“I know one of your witnesses,” she tells him. “Cory Evans goes to my school. Makes a little bit of money dealing weed. Could be he was at the crime scene ‘cause he’s moved up in the world.”

“You think he’s working for Scarecrow?” Bruce says.

“I think it’s a possibility,” Steph replies. “Crane’s used dealers in the past, hasn’t he?”

“If you think it’s a lead, follow it,” Bruce says. “Question him and report back.”

“Will do, Boss,” she says lightly. He glances over at her, frowning a little, and it occurs to Steph that they could well be thinking of the same thing: Steph was his partner once before. It ended pretty poorly for everyone involved, but.

“You know I don’t regret being Robin,” she says. “Not even with everything that happened afterward.”

“I don’t regret you being Robin either,” Bruce replies. “Although for a while I did.”

“I think a lot of people regretted a lot of things,” Steph says. “And that regret can be helpful for learning things, but not for doing things.”

“You’re probably right,” Bruce says. “Question Evans. I’ll see you later.”

“Sure thing, Batman,” Steph replies, and jogs down to the Ricochet, pulling on her cowl as she goes. It’s not until she’s roaring out into Gotham that she realizes her heart rate is through the roof. It’s probably a good thing she’s only noticing that now. The conversation would have been  _ way  _ more awkward if she thought she was panicking.

An hour later Cory Evans bails on their conversation when she brings up the Scarecrow, and about two hours after that Steph tracks him to a meeting place with the man himself and finds herself needing a gas mask, and about five hours after that they find Cory Evans dead, and about twelve hours after that they call in the other Batman and the three of them take Scarecrow the eff  _ down. _

It’s good times. So what if she gets fear-gassed a little.

===

About four hours after they pack the Scarecrow into a squad car to be towed off to Arkham, Steph is back in forbidden territory. Specifically, she’s perched on a gargoyle atop the Wayne building, the city sprawled out beneath her. It’s a view she doesn’t get nearly enough of, what with this corner of the city being Batman & Robin’s Territory. Tonight, though, she’s earned it. Tonight she’s faced off against Actual Batman and her own worst fears and she’s punched Scarecrow in the face, not once but multiple times, under the influence of a new-and-improved fear toxin that’s meant to turn you against your allies but got misdirected in a case of what could be sheer dumb luck but was probably Stephanie being plain old  _ awesome.  _ Tonight she’s a Bat, and the whole damn city oughta know it.

Which is totally why she’s here and not downstairs or at the manor unwinding from what has been a very demanding twenty-four hours or so. Not because she’s still coming off the effects of fear toxin, which is a hell and a half she’s still unused to.

Even recovering, though, she’s still a damn Bat, which is how she registers Cass’s presence even before she moves soundlessly into Steph’s line of sight and sits down. 

“Hello,” she says.

“Hey, Cass,” Steph replies. 

“How is Gotham?” Cass asks, looking out over the lights and the sounds and the smog. Steph shrugs.

“Gotham is Gotham,” she replies. “Big, old, and dirty. But stubborn.”

“Like us,” Cass says. “Gotham breaks many times, but… resurrects. Grows strong.”

“Some of us can take that more literally than others,” Steph jokes, and Cass-- because she’s just Cass, in jeans and a heavy jacket and a soft hat pulled over her hair and ears-- smiles.

“I missed you,” she says. “I have visited, but have not seen you. Too busy. I am sorry.”

“Gosh, it’s okay,” Steph says. “You were busy.”

“I missed you,” Cass repeats. “I missed you many times.”

Steph figures she’s not just talking about taking off to Hong Kong now.

“I missed you too,” she says. “It was nice having a friend who was like me.”

“It  _ is  _ nice,” Cass says. “Having a friend who is like me.” She tilts her head at Steph. “We are friends, right?”

“Of course we’re friends,” Steph says. “But… I think we’re different people now, you know? Like the friends we were then and the friends we are now are different.”

Cass thinks about this for a few minutes. Then she says, “It doesn’t have to be. Different. We are friends. We were just in different places.” 

Steph laughs. “Yeah. A lot of different places.” Cass smiles again. She has a nice smile; Steph remembers that from before, when she wore a lot more purple and Cass wore that super-creepy mask sometimes. She remembers Cass was more surprised to smile, and to laugh, and Steph used up all her cheesy jokes trying to bring it out of her. They didn’t always work.

Cass nudges her, bringing her back to the present. When she glances over, Cass is holding a styrofoam box and smiling, one of those mysterious I-know-something-you-don’t-know smiles Cass already had when Steph met her.

“You didn’t,” Steph says. Cass smiles wider and hands her the box. It’s an order of waffles. Stephanie sets it down on the ledge and hugs her. Partially because hugging Cass is always great, because it’s a nice way to show gratitude, but also because she feels  _ known. _ Because Cassandra Cain  _ knows _ Stephanie Brown, and she brought waffles. And when she hugs back, it’s the best thing ever.

“The, ah, the fear toxin,” Steph says slowly, into Cass’s shoulder, “it made me see stuff. Hear stuff. People telling me I didn’t belong. And I’ve made a place for myself, and I’ve earned it, but. Um.”

“You belong,” Cass says, squeezing Steph a little bit. “You are a Bat. This is your family too.”

Steph smiles into Cass’s shoulder. “Damn straight.”

They share the waffles.

**Author's Note:**

> citations from batman canon! Steph and Damian's case with the kidnappers and the school bus and the moon bounce is from #17 of Steph's Batgirl run from 2009. it's such a great issue, for serious. the blowing-up-the-iceberg-lounge-debacle is from the series Gates of Gotham, which featured zero Steph but did feature Cass, which I consider a win. 
> 
> The last two segments tie into my other fic Tim's Bad Weekend (that's more or less the title), which I'm super pleased about. I like things that tie together, which is why I started writing other installments in this verse in the first place. 
> 
> if you're curious as to what I'm doing when I'm not writing batfic, I'm over on tumblr @captainpeggys. come say hi! and remember to leave a comment, I love hearing from y'all. :) thanks so much for reading!


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